We cannot feast while there is famine.
Why Biden is hiding.
Over 200,000 people cast “uncommitted” or similar votes in the Democratic primaries on Super Tuesday, a strong rebuke of President Biden over his ongoing complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.
In Minnesota, uncommitted ballots accounted for nearly 20 percent of the vote, meaning the uncommitted movement will get to send 11 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, in addition to the two uncommitted delegates being sent by Michigan.
In North Carolina, 12 percent of Democrats — nearly 90,000 people — cast a “no preference” vote. In Massachusetts and Colorado, uncommitted or similar options received 9 and 8 percent of the vote, respectively.
Over 150 days into the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, pressure on the Biden administration has reached a boiling point.
Biden’s team has taken to hosting smaller events and keeping locations a secret until the President arrives, lest he be heckled by pro-Palestinian protesters — and they’re reportedly considering hiring a private company to screen attendees ahead of a major fundraiser this month.
The facade of unquestioning U.S. support for the Israeli government is crumbling, thanks in large part to the immense pressure being exerted by the Palestine solidarity movement.
Biden knows U.S. complicity in the Gaza genocide could cost him the 2024 election, and he’s willing to do just about anything to save face — except cut off the flow of U.S. dollars to Israel’s genocidal military.
The cracks are showing
A day after over 100 starving Palestinians were massacred by the Israeli military while waiting for humanitarian aid, Biden announced that the U.S. would conduct a series of aid airdrops — a last-ditch effort to save face and stave off the impending famine. Experts say these airdrops are both expensive and inefficient.
The grim irony of these aid drops isn’t lost on us. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians aren’t just starving, they’re being starved by the Israeli government, an ostensible U.S. ally that continues to receive billions in U.S. military funding. The Israeli military, in turn, uses these American weapons to fire on UNRWA trucks and gun down Palestinians queuing for aid.
On Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris offered the strongest rebuke of the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza from a top U.S. official to date. During a speech commemorating the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Harris called for a six-week ceasefire and described conditions on the ground in Gaza as a “humanitarian catastrophe,” saying the Israeli government “must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid” into Gaza, “no excuses.”
A day later, Israeli War Cabinet minister Benny Gantz was in the United States for meetings with Harris and other top Biden administration officials, much to the chagrin of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had not “authorized” the trip and even ordered the Israeli embassy in Washington to boycott Gantz’s meetings.
Time is running out for a ceasefire
That Netanyahu’s foremost political rival is convening with top U.S. officials at such a critical moment attests to growing U.S. frustration with the Netanyahu government.
U.S. officials are pushing hard for a ceasefire before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins next week. Right now, a U.S.-backed, six-week deal is on the table. But as of last Friday, reports indicated that the Israeli government would not move forward with ceasefire negotiations until Hamas provided it with a list of the Israeli hostages who are still alive — something Hamas has said is impossible without a cessation in hostilities. Last week, Hamas said seven more hostages were killed in the Israeli military’s ongoing assault.
The stories coming out of Gaza are harrowing. Children are now being starved at a faster rate than at any other point in history, and in the besieged enclave’s isolated north, aid has all but come to a halt. As of January, one in six children under the age of two in north Gaza was acutely malnourished. And in recent days, 15 children have died of starvation and dehydration at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City.
Over the weekend, the Israeli military again fired on a crowd of Palestinians trying to collect humanitarian aid, killing and injuring dozens of people. And it continues to bomb Rafah, where over one million people have taken refuge. They will have nowhere to go should a ground invasion commence.
What we’re watching.
As we continue to fight for a permanent ceasefire, we’re also expanding our tactics and targets, exposing the institutions and individuals fueling this genocide and demanding accountability.
That’s why we took to the streets in NYC to demand that our elected officials stop taking money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a right-wing, anti-Palestinian lobby group that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to buy our politicians’ silence on Palestine — including bullying them into opposing a ceasefire.
In this clip from Al Jazeera English, JVP member Tal Frieden sums up AIPAC in three words: “Pro-death. Pro-apartheid. Pro-genocide.”
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